Put a split HDD back to its original capacity without formatting?

[AIJ]

Hello,

 

My slow 400$ ASUS laptop comes with a 698gb 5400RPM HGST HDD.

 

Although, this drive is separated in two, non-equal parts:

 

I would like to put those two parts into one to have better bootup speeds and more space into one disk.

 

Is this possible by going to the BIOS or by using some sort of application? N.B: Windows drive pooling does not work.

 

Thanks in advance!

[VoyexTech]

8 minutes ago, AIJ said:

Hello,

 

My slow 400$ ASUS laptop comes with a 698gb 5400RPM HGST HDD.

 

Although, this drive is separated in two, non-equal parts:

 

I would like to put those two parts into one to have better bootup speeds and more space into one disk.

 

Is this possible by going to the BIOS or by using some sort of application? N.B: Windows drive pooling does not work.

 

Thanks in advance!

Set it up as a raid 0?

[AIJ]

Just now, VoyexTech said:

Set it up as a raid 0?

Yeah. Basically anything that will put them back to its original 698gb capacity.

[drc00k3]

Move all the data from the D partition to the C partition. Go to disk management, find the D partition, delete the volume and resize the C partition to the full size of the disk. You will need to format the D partition but you can move the data over manually.

[AIJ]

20 minutes ago, drc00k3 said:

Move all the data from the D partition to the C partition. Go to disk management, find the D partition, delete the volume and resize the C partition to the full size of the disk. You will need to format the D partition but you can move the data over manually.

Can't do this, my C:/ disk is too full, and my D:\ Partition is too full to do this too!

[drc00k3]

4 minutes ago, AIJ said:

Can't do this, my C:/ disk is too full, and my D:\ Partition is too full to do this too!

Shrink the D partition to within a few gigabytes of the data stored on it and expand the C partition as much as possible.

[AIJ]

Just now, drc00k3 said:

Shrink the D partition to within a few gigabytes of the data stored on it and expand the C partition as much as possible.

Not meaning to sound like an idiot... but how do I do this?

[drc00k3]

2 minutes ago, AIJ said:

Not meaning to sound like an idiot... but how do I do this?

Open disk management

Find the disk at the bottom of the window

Right click on the D partition and click "Shrink Volume..."

Right click on the C partition and click "Extend Volume..."

[AIJ]

17 minutes ago, drc00k3 said:

Open disk management

Find the disk at the bottom of the window

Right click on the D partition and click "Shrink Volume..."

Right click on the C partition and click "Extend Volume..."

I've tried to shrink the volume of D:\ and it's still loading after like 30 mins and it does nothing...

[drc00k3]

Just now, AIJ said:

I've tried to shrink the volume of D:\ and it's still loading after like 30 mins...

It might take a while, is it a mechanical drive?

[AIJ]

Just now, drc00k3 said:

It might take a while, is it a mechanical drive?

Yes, it's a 5400RPM Hitachi HDD

[drc00k3]

Just now, AIJ said:

Yes, it's a 5400RPM Hitachi HDD

I think it will defragment the drive while it does it so it might take a long time, if it takes more than a few hours, then you should be concerned.

[AIJ]

1 minute ago, drc00k3 said:

I think it will defragment the drive while it does it so it might take a long time, if it takes more than a few hours, then you should be concerned.

Yeah, the thing is that I can't hear my hard drive, nor does it get hotter, and I normally hear it while doing defrag.

[drc00k3]

Just now, AIJ said:

Yeah, the thing is that I can't hear my hard drive, nor does it get hotter, and I normally hear it while doing defrag.

Let it run for an hour or so, see if it gets anywhere.

[AIJ]

Just now, drc00k3 said:

Let it run for an hour or so, see if it gets anywhere.

Aight.

[AIJ]

27 minutes ago, drc00k3 said:

Let it run for an hour or so, see if it gets anywhere.

Been a hour... still nothing, so I'll cancel it and retry.

[drc00k3]

1 minute ago, AIJ said:

Been a hour... still nothing, so I'll cancel it and retry.

If you're going to retry, defragment first.

[AIJ]

3 hours ago, drc00k3 said:

If you're going to retry, defragment first.

I managed to shrink the D:\ Drive, but I can't make the C:\ drive larger.

[Captain_WD]

21 hours ago, AIJ said:

~snip~

 

Hey AIJ,

Is this one physical drive or two separate physical drives in your laptop? Could you post a screenshot of the way you see them in your Disk Management?
If this is one single drive with two separate partitions you won't notice any change in booting or loading times if you merge both partitions. Furthermore, merging them will require formatting and losing all data from your D partition. 
You can't really make a RAID array from a single drive as there's no actual point in doing that. 
You will have the same total amount of space if you merge them so that won't be a benefit either. 

Post back with some more details,

Captain_WD.

[AIJ]

1 hour ago, Captain_WD said:

 

Hey AIJ,

Is this one physical drive or two separate physical drives in your laptop? Could you post a screenshot of the way you see them in your Disk Management?
If this is one single drive with two separate partitions you won't notice any change in booting or loading times if you merge both partitions. Furthermore, merging them will require formatting and losing all data from your D partition. 
You can't really make a RAID array from a single drive as there's no actual point in doing that. 
You will have the same total amount of space if you merge them so that won't be a benefit either. 

Post back with some more details,

Captain_WD.

this is one single hdd

[Captain_WD]

17 minutes ago, AIJ said:

~snip~

 

There shouldn't be any difference if the drive is partitioned as one single volume or two separate ones regarding boot and loading times.
Also you can't really make a RAID array out of a single HDD (there won't be any point in that both regarding speed or redundancy).

Captain_WD.